What We Remember

by Michael Thomas Ford

Book Overview

Every family has a hidden story-even the perfect ones. Dig just a little, beyond the smiling holiday photographs and the oft-repeated anecdotes, and other memories come flooding back-the kind that can compel a family to stick together through catastrophe, or drive a chasm between them forever. On the morning James McCloud, a Seattle district attorney, gets a call from his sister, Celeste, he senses his own long-buried family history is about to be...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0758218524
• ISBN13: 9780758218520
• Release Date: May 2010
• Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation
• Length: 370 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Proper Murder Mystery

Michael Thomas Ford has earned a loyal following for his excellent novels: he is fine storyteller, knows how to pace a tale to keep the reader involved, and creates characters with whom the reader can embrace as memorable people. His ability to remain in the top group of the writers who create successful gay-themed stories that stand solidly as excellent literature is well established, and while not all of his output is along these lines, his most popular books are (Last Summer, Looking for It, Full Circle, Changing Tides, Alec Baldwin Doesn't Love Me, That's Mr. Faggot to You, It's Not Mean If It's True, etc.) In WHAT WE REMEMBER Ford seems to be branching out into novels that will appeal to a larger audience in that he explores the arena of women's fantasies and private moments and the intrigues of heterosexual liaisons along with the tired and true dissection of dysfunctional families. He adds to this what is meant to be a puzzling murder mystery and the technique of writing that alternates contemporary time in alternating chapters with events eight years prior to explain the gradual unfolding of family secrets and realities. Some of this works, some doesn't. Simply stated WHAT WE REMEMBER is a tale of two families in a small town whose lives are intertwined with love/hate relationships, suicide/murder, jealousy, misplaced and reconnected love and other diversions. The problem with this novel is that the characters are almost without exception not people about whom we care, making the strange developments less than convincing. Of note, the only character who does manage to maintain our interest is Billy, the youngest brother of the main family who just happens to be gay. But even Billy is a misfit and stretches the tolerance of the family as well as the patience of the reader until the last few chapters. Any reader who pays attention to the rather obvious hints stated from the beginning of this book will have figured out the mysteries that end the book. It may not be Michael Thomas Ford at his best, but it still is a good read and one that keeps the reader involved in spite of the weaknesses. Grady Harp, December 09

always a great pleasure!

I enjoyed this book as much as everything else written by Michael Thomas Ford. Always waiting for the next one...

A Page Turner For Sure

Just finished What We Remember and what a book! Excellently written it is a real pleasure to read. Every time I thought I had the perpetrator Michael threw in another curve that completely blew all my theories out of the water. Nice surprise ending that allows you to sit back and think about what happens to the cast of characters. You absolutely won't be sorry you sat down and read this book. It is a page turner.

Discovering Family Secrets

Ford, Michael Thomas. "What We Remember", Kensington, 2009. Discovering Family Secrets Amos Lassen I am a huge Michael Thomas Ford fan so naturally I have high expectations for whenever he writes a new book. "What We Remember" does not disappoint in the least as Ford takes us through the intimacy of life in a small town and we learn secrets, mysteries and of tragedies. The book is a beautiful exploration of familial love and the things that we do to maintain it. James McCloud, a Seattle district attorney is faced with tragedy when his father, Daniel, a police officer who was suffering from terminal cancer, committed suicide. As in all tragedies this one has been especially hard for James and to make matters worse, he receives a phone call from his sister, Celeste, who tells him that it has been discovered that evidence now shows that his father did not commit suicide but was murdered. This causes James to return to Cold Falls, New York, to be with Ada, his mother and his twenty-one year old brother Billy who is gay. James's high school ring was found with his father's body and this causes old antagonisms between James and his brother-in-law, Nate, the town sheriff and the man investigating the case to resurface. As the case is investigated secrets are revealed and lies are blown wide open and both James's and Nate's families are threatened. Here is now, not one, but two families in crisis and shows us that we do not always know the people that are the closest to us. This is not a happy story and how could it be when the issues are secrets and lies and animosities. Many of us depend upon memory as a way to influence our families and ourselves and it is also memory that can tear us apart. The McCloud family has tried to stay a family even after James moved away. Everyone seemed to be doing fine except for Billy, the gay family member who drifts through life and has suffered substance abuse. But it is also Billy who may know what really happened to the family's father. Nate suspected James implication in the death of Daniel McCloud because they had differences. It is Charly, James's girlfriend who flies out from Seattle to help in his defense who finds a family that is not only unusual but with close ties to the family of Daniel's best friend and everyone seems to have a secret which keep the crime from being solved. Ford provides for us a character study of small town family and he does so by using effective flashback narratives from the characters and we learn that lies can haunt us no matter how small and well-meaning they may be. The book is wonderful balance of intimacy in a family and the larger mystery of the death of Daniel. We finally learn the mystery of the father's death but in the process we have had to deal with some painful insights about family and about the need to belong. Michael Thomas Ford has written a book that will not easily be forgotten as we realize what time can do with regard to family and friendship. This may ve

Family secrets are many in this outstanding new novel!

A quiet evening in Seattle, with his attorney girlfriend, Charly, is interrupted for James McCloud by a call from his sister Celeste, back home in upstate New York. Seems that the body of his father, long believed to have committed suicide, has been found, and indications are that he was murdered. James flies home to help Celeste, his gay younger brother Billy, and their mother, Ada, at this difficult time. Circumstantial evidence found with the body results in his being arrested as the primary suspect, by Celeste's husband, Nate, the town sheriff. As the family ponders the scary possibility that James, who had his differences with his father but never showed any violence before, might have actually committed the murder, Charly flies to New York to help in James' defense. She finds a very unusual family, with close ties to the family of the father's best friend, and many of them harboring secrets they assumed wouldn't hurt anyone, but which together conspire to keep the crime from being solved. One of my absolute favorite authors, Michael Thomas Ford has an impressive stack of diverse best sellers in several genres and on a variety of topics. This mystery/character study of a small town family is among his best. Told effectively in flashback narratives by the different characters, it provides a life lesson on how secrets and "white lies," no matter how well-meaning, can come back to haunt you later. Excellent, captivating read, which I give five bright stars out of five, in a dark country sky.